There are a number of great experiances about history on the Go. Here are some of them sorted by time period. Note than some apps have experiences set in different time periods.
Pre-history (25,000 BC - 10,000):
Live the Past - Explore a Prehistorical Cave
Agricultural Times (10,000-5,000BC)
Live the Past - Explore a Protohistorical Town
Unimersiv - Stonehenge
Greek Times (800-300BC)
Unimersiv - Explore the Acropolis, less graphical than Athen in VR, good tour
Roman Times (300BC-500AD)
Athens in VR - Athens in the year 0, large exploration area
Unimersiv - Tour Rome
Live in the Past - Explore a Spanish town in Roman times.
China (wide range of history)
Mysteries of China: The Forbidden City
Mysteries of China: The Great Wall
Monday, June 11, 2018
Friday, June 1, 2018
What's in there - Amaze
Amaze is a free app with something like 150 videos, most in 3D stereo. You can stream or download with download looking a bit better. Still the streaming isn't bad. Some videos do jerk a bit especially on motion and I suspect they were shot at 30 or even 24 fps. The travel events in particular have some real gems.
Travel & Events Category
Good Travel
Three segments touring Cuba which total 20 plus minutes. These are fairly nice 3D videos. There was some flickering and I think one eyes was just a bit fuzzy. Still enjoyable and interesting walk around various bit of the island with two guides and meeting one funky artist.
Everest Base Camp: Who knew that getting to Everest base camp was a week long endeavor. Very nice 11 minute video with an entertaining guide and excellent footage. I'm a bit worn out just from watching the film. There is also a 2.5 minute non-narrated music video montage thingie if you can't sit through the longer film.
Lantern Festival: From the same guy a short, fun video about lighting lantern kites at a California event and letting them fly away. Hopefully not near California forests...
Philly and San Fran videos are short walks through the respective towns from the same guy who does most of the good travel videos for Amaze listed so far. He seems to by named Ernest and he did a really nice job on all these travel videos.
Lassen Volcanic National Park is a lovely park video made by the rangers. In the past I've seen some not so great park videos, but this is the real deal. It is a beautiful seven and a half minute film. Well the last bit might be an acquired taste!
Magic Metamorphosis is a 7 minute romp at an LA magic club with lots of craziness and the stunt for which the clip is named at the center of the madness. I have a soft spot in my head for magic. Hum that may have come out wrong. Anyway this was a solid and fun little bit of magic. Well filmed.
Magic in Heels. If you like up close, small magic tricks give these two videos a look. They total about 18 minutes and are solid stereo 3D. The magic is nice if basic and the young lady is pretty. What more could you ask for.
Korean Folk Show is a simple but well produced song video with clever use of lighting. The two instruments are a sort of drum and a stringed instrument that looked something like the huge fretboard of a guitar and nothing else. For more of the same culture see Korean Folk Dance replete with head ribbon spinning and percussion.
Street Meet LA feels even more foreign than the shows on Korean culture at least when you live in middle America. Lots of smoke, models and a death mask. California.
Sahara Desert has a lot of camel riding, eating and music packed into 3 minutes. It is interesting how immersed you can get into another culture in only a few minutes in VR. I know I keep saying this, but another nicely done video.
Going to a nightclub and hanging out at the beach with some buddies and getting people to ride unicycles are the last two videos. Not my thing, but semi-interesting. Watch out for those flashing nightclub lights.
Not So Good Travel
The various short Playlist Live videos, AIA Red Carpet and Rolling Stone Party are all sort of behind the scenes celebrity culture things. Just not my thing. All seemed to have some problems where I closed one eye at times. The IPD seemed to shift or something and sometimes one eye felt blurry. Also the camera is often too close to the subject. Avoid unless you love quasi celebrities. No live music at the music events due to licensing I'm sure.
Hike with an Instagram model is mostly about checking out the model on a brief hike and mediation..
Rebuild Puerto Rico is a nice idea, but 2D video, no thanks.
If seeing them at Starbucks spread across three tables isn't enough you can get the 'franchise experience' in your own home at a franchising convention with more ego-maniacal liars per square meter than Congress. I watched 15 seconds, suppressed a gag reflex and moved on.
Dining Category
Bugs and Wine Tasting is about as bizarre as dining gets I suppose. Probably a second date meal, not for the first date. This one is well over 10 minutes and i must admit I skimmed it. Actually pretty entertaining host and wine bar employees. If you enjoyed the old TV show where they made people eat bugs, then this is for you. The video seemed a bit off for me and I had to close one eye.
Korean food is explored by our old buddy from the travel section and is quite interesting. Eating rare squid makes for memorable film. The market with all the live fish and sea creatures was quite an eye opener. Solid video. Meanwhile Koreatown LA is an interesting 8 minutes of eating commentary from a different guide / comedian who has lots of fun and explains the various meats, picked and fermented items.
JDub's Brewery Tours is a wander around through the eat establishment / brewery with lots of out door games. This one seemed to give my eyes some trouble and I had to close one eye.
Around the world at Epcot looks like a nice over 15 minute tour through the eateries at Epcot, but I felt my eyes cross immediately and even trying to view with one eye was uncomfortable. I'm not sure why so many videos in the dining category are giving me eye issues.
Dining with a Maxim model is one of the rare 2D videos, so no thanks.
The Experimental Category is as odd as you would expect. Six of the videos are things like people spray painting a sphere over a camera, a bizarre art thing about a lady giant and more. There are two great videos however. The first is a ride through fractal space that feels like something Gene Rodenberry might have come up with as a voyage for the Starship Enterpoop if he had been overly medicated. The other has half a dozen crazy science experiments that have to be seen to be believed.
The Horror Category is not for me, I don't do horror, other than some of the dining videos, so you are on your won. 3 videos, 20 minutes someone leave a comment about how the films look.
The Magga Bracco Category features the pretty Venezuelan dancer in 45 minutes of videos where she dances and chats. Some of the videos can be a bit too close and feel like the scale is too small. Still if you like attractive vivacious ladies, you will appreciate this category. Oh, and as you always should be, if you meet Ms. Bracco in person be polite, she is a proficient boxer.
The Pole Dance Category is definitely the adult side of Amaze. Think burlesque with strippers poles for about an hours worth of videos from the LA Pole Show. Quite a few performances and some behind the scenes videos. Lots of girls, and a few guys, dancing in their underwear showing lots of leg and plenty of buns on stage with various lighting effects. There are also so more stripper pole dances in swimwear.
The Fashion Category has 5 mostly brief videos with a beautiful Maxim model giving you the girlfriend experience and chatting, a pretty girl modeling swimwear, a behind the scenes look at a fashion show and a jerky video about a community project.
The Amaze Category has three thirty second intro videos that are all similar and a three minute best of 2017. There are also two Rejection / Dating Simulator videos. Pretty girl turns you down unless you pick the right answer out of three. Did surprisingly little for my self esteem.
Travel & Events Category
Good Travel
Three segments touring Cuba which total 20 plus minutes. These are fairly nice 3D videos. There was some flickering and I think one eyes was just a bit fuzzy. Still enjoyable and interesting walk around various bit of the island with two guides and meeting one funky artist.
Everest Base Camp: Who knew that getting to Everest base camp was a week long endeavor. Very nice 11 minute video with an entertaining guide and excellent footage. I'm a bit worn out just from watching the film. There is also a 2.5 minute non-narrated music video montage thingie if you can't sit through the longer film.
Lantern Festival: From the same guy a short, fun video about lighting lantern kites at a California event and letting them fly away. Hopefully not near California forests...
Philly and San Fran videos are short walks through the respective towns from the same guy who does most of the good travel videos for Amaze listed so far. He seems to by named Ernest and he did a really nice job on all these travel videos.
Lassen Volcanic National Park is a lovely park video made by the rangers. In the past I've seen some not so great park videos, but this is the real deal. It is a beautiful seven and a half minute film. Well the last bit might be an acquired taste!
Magic Metamorphosis is a 7 minute romp at an LA magic club with lots of craziness and the stunt for which the clip is named at the center of the madness. I have a soft spot in my head for magic. Hum that may have come out wrong. Anyway this was a solid and fun little bit of magic. Well filmed.
Magic in Heels. If you like up close, small magic tricks give these two videos a look. They total about 18 minutes and are solid stereo 3D. The magic is nice if basic and the young lady is pretty. What more could you ask for.
Korean Folk Show is a simple but well produced song video with clever use of lighting. The two instruments are a sort of drum and a stringed instrument that looked something like the huge fretboard of a guitar and nothing else. For more of the same culture see Korean Folk Dance replete with head ribbon spinning and percussion.
Street Meet LA feels even more foreign than the shows on Korean culture at least when you live in middle America. Lots of smoke, models and a death mask. California.
Sahara Desert has a lot of camel riding, eating and music packed into 3 minutes. It is interesting how immersed you can get into another culture in only a few minutes in VR. I know I keep saying this, but another nicely done video.
Going to a nightclub and hanging out at the beach with some buddies and getting people to ride unicycles are the last two videos. Not my thing, but semi-interesting. Watch out for those flashing nightclub lights.
Not So Good Travel
The various short Playlist Live videos, AIA Red Carpet and Rolling Stone Party are all sort of behind the scenes celebrity culture things. Just not my thing. All seemed to have some problems where I closed one eye at times. The IPD seemed to shift or something and sometimes one eye felt blurry. Also the camera is often too close to the subject. Avoid unless you love quasi celebrities. No live music at the music events due to licensing I'm sure.
Hike with an Instagram model is mostly about checking out the model on a brief hike and mediation..
Rebuild Puerto Rico is a nice idea, but 2D video, no thanks.
If seeing them at Starbucks spread across three tables isn't enough you can get the 'franchise experience' in your own home at a franchising convention with more ego-maniacal liars per square meter than Congress. I watched 15 seconds, suppressed a gag reflex and moved on.
Dining Category
Bugs and Wine Tasting is about as bizarre as dining gets I suppose. Probably a second date meal, not for the first date. This one is well over 10 minutes and i must admit I skimmed it. Actually pretty entertaining host and wine bar employees. If you enjoyed the old TV show where they made people eat bugs, then this is for you. The video seemed a bit off for me and I had to close one eye.
Korean food is explored by our old buddy from the travel section and is quite interesting. Eating rare squid makes for memorable film. The market with all the live fish and sea creatures was quite an eye opener. Solid video. Meanwhile Koreatown LA is an interesting 8 minutes of eating commentary from a different guide / comedian who has lots of fun and explains the various meats, picked and fermented items.
JDub's Brewery Tours is a wander around through the eat establishment / brewery with lots of out door games. This one seemed to give my eyes some trouble and I had to close one eye.
Around the world at Epcot looks like a nice over 15 minute tour through the eateries at Epcot, but I felt my eyes cross immediately and even trying to view with one eye was uncomfortable. I'm not sure why so many videos in the dining category are giving me eye issues.
Dining with a Maxim model is one of the rare 2D videos, so no thanks.
The Experimental Category is as odd as you would expect. Six of the videos are things like people spray painting a sphere over a camera, a bizarre art thing about a lady giant and more. There are two great videos however. The first is a ride through fractal space that feels like something Gene Rodenberry might have come up with as a voyage for the Starship Enterpoop if he had been overly medicated. The other has half a dozen crazy science experiments that have to be seen to be believed.
The Horror Category is not for me, I don't do horror, other than some of the dining videos, so you are on your won. 3 videos, 20 minutes someone leave a comment about how the films look.
The Magga Bracco Category features the pretty Venezuelan dancer in 45 minutes of videos where she dances and chats. Some of the videos can be a bit too close and feel like the scale is too small. Still if you like attractive vivacious ladies, you will appreciate this category. Oh, and as you always should be, if you meet Ms. Bracco in person be polite, she is a proficient boxer.
The Pole Dance Category is definitely the adult side of Amaze. Think burlesque with strippers poles for about an hours worth of videos from the LA Pole Show. Quite a few performances and some behind the scenes videos. Lots of girls, and a few guys, dancing in their underwear showing lots of leg and plenty of buns on stage with various lighting effects. There are also so more stripper pole dances in swimwear.
The Fashion Category has 5 mostly brief videos with a beautiful Maxim model giving you the girlfriend experience and chatting, a pretty girl modeling swimwear, a behind the scenes look at a fashion show and a jerky video about a community project.
The Amaze Category has three thirty second intro videos that are all similar and a three minute best of 2017. There are also two Rejection / Dating Simulator videos. Pretty girl turns you down unless you pick the right answer out of three. Did surprisingly little for my self esteem.
Floor Plan
Floor Plan
Type:Game
Image Quality: Decent
Scale: Good
Length: Medium
This is a fun little adventure in an elevator game. It took me about an hour to finish it, though I'm a bit slow on some games. The graphics are cute though not exactly cutting edge. There are some clever puzzles.
Type:Game
Image Quality: Decent
Scale: Good
Length: Medium
This is a fun little adventure in an elevator game. It took me about an hour to finish it, though I'm a bit slow on some games. The graphics are cute though not exactly cutting edge. There are some clever puzzles.
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
What's in there - Next VR
Someone asked what was in Amaze and it struck me that it would be nice to document what was in the various video and photo collections in true stereoscopic 3D VR. So lets dive into NextVR which is one of the best collections of video out there.
Tribes of Papua New Guinea: This is a 12 minute documentary on a marriage and festival in New Guinea. It is nicely shot and narrated and the additional 8 minutes or so of behind the scenes type footage is a nice addition. This is an excellent free 20 minute educational travelogue package. These types of experiences really add to my enjoyment of VR and I congratulate NextVR on making this film. Note there is national geographic style toplessness so it is likely PG-13.
The technical work is excellent. I've seen so many travelogue type 'VR' videos that were poorly shot 2D that I was wondering if even NextVR could carry off a good VR experience. They did. In one of the little commentaries the director mentions that they had to stop the wedding many times to get the right shot and it took 3 hours to film that part of the video.
As with many NextVR films the scale seems a bit small. I actually thought it was much too small at first until realizing that the folks in New Guinea where a bit smaller than the football and basketball players I usually see in NextVR.
Overall this is one of the best non-sports films available on the Go right now. You really get a feel for the area and its people in a very short period of time. The immersion factor of VR really shows what can be done with an educational video. This and Space Explorers have really wet my appetite for more of these videos. The fact that it free makes this even more amazing. The streaming works well and unless you are deeply offended by topless women, you should definitely watch this.
NFL: If you enjoy the football as I do, you will like love this collection of game highlights from five NFL games. They tend to run about ten minutes each with two hosts who guide you through the highlights and chat about the games and such. There are a few best of films.
The inherent problem of the Go is that you have a range of about 1 to 10 yards where things look sharp. After about 10 yards things just start getting fuzzy. A football field is what 53 by 120 yards when you include the endzone. So much of the action is in the fuzzy zone. The good news is that plays close to the endzone and by the sideline look really good. It can be odd to see a receiver running into focus. Also to me the players are a bit smaller than reallife. Even with these limitations, this is just fun to watch.
Preview Show will get you hyped for five highlight reels from the games.They actually show some highlights from the previous season and the odd thing is that the plays look about 2 feet tall. In the current season they might look about 5 feet tall, so they have really improved in scale.
Sideline to Sideline is a nice 3 minute highlight reel with music of the games NextVR covered.
Best of the NFL is a 7 minute hosted clip show with mascots, players dancing and having fun, fans and even some plays. Nicely done, it might be the best of the lot.
There is a 3 minute clip about the Atlanta Falcons new digs.
The heart of the NFL experience is 5 games with hosted highlight / recap shows that are 8 to 10 minutes. In addition to a little intro and the highlights there is a player interview. This wouldn't be particularly notable on TV, but in VR it is amazing to see the plays as if you were standing on the sidelines. The players can look a bit small and once the action gets say 15 yards or more from the camera it gets very blurry. Still along the sidelines or in the endzone the picture quality is very good and it does feel like you are watching in person. Again if you like Football this will be high on your list of VR tings to do.
NBA: Amazingly enough there are full game replays. Camera are above and below the backboards and on the sidelines. At first it was a bit jarring to look at a play from up high, but you quickly adjust. NextVR is treating this in the same way that TV broadcasters do with their own trucks, crew, producer and announce team and it really shows. I've tried other sports app and they all feel like afterthoughts and generally have terrible video. These NBA productions look like broadcast TV productions in VR.
There are lots of action packed 3 minuteish highlight reels, dozens of them is feel like. They do a good job dazzling you with players from your favorite team and showing off the technology. But it is the full game productions that are really impressive. I don't know if most of use are quite ready to sit through a 2+ hour game in the Go goggles, but the games are there if you want to try it.
As mentioned here and there, the Go camera doesn't do very well at less than a yard or more than maybe 10 yards out if that. Fortunately the NBA is played in a much smaller field that football and soccer so with half a dozen good VR cameras it is possible to have most of the plays and players in reasonable focus. Along with the WWE (more next), the NBA seems ideally suited to the demands and limitations of VR. With a younger audience than either the NFL or MLB and flush with cash, the NBA seems to the the sport embracing VR. Even if you aren't a big basketball fan, and I'm not, you owe it to yourself to checkout some of this content as it might be the best VR sports content in the world today. Actually it might be some of the best VR film content anywhere and there's roughly 50 hours of it free.
WWE: Well produced segments that feel like TV broadcasts come to life. I watched all three 10 minute or so segments after typing that first sentence (I'd watched about 5 minutes before) and yes they are well done. WWE knows how to put on a show and the highlights from Fastlane and Wrestlemania are among the best I've seen up there with the NBA VR.
There seemed to be cameras on two ring posts and a couple outside the ring to bring all the action to you. It did feel like being inside a telecast as you felt closer than being in the arena crowd. The only odd thing was they didn't show any actual finishes. I don't know if that was contractual or if the finishes might have looked fake in VR. Anyway odd. That aside this was a lot of fun and that from someone who hasn't watched wrestling in decades.
With all the scripting and planning that goes into wrestling and with the performers in a tight area, Wrestling would seem perfect for VR to broadcast live. giving the new huge contract with FOX, WWE can certainly afford it. It would be ironic if Wrestling helped drive live VR as it once drove live (and taped) TV back when TVs had 10 inch black and white screens. Technology has come quite a ways.
Soccer: Like American football there tends to be too much ground for the camera to focus on. As a result everything not right in front of the goal tends to be fuzzy. Also the size of the players seems to be an issue. In the Manchester highlights at least everyone seemed about half size in some shots. Watching some more highlights the players generally seem a bit small but not half sized.
I'm not a soccer guy so forgive my ignorance of the sport. There was a big pre-season tournament with many of the best teams in the world playing in America. There are lots of highlight shows here, maybe 20, that range from 3 to 5 minutes usually and a longer tournament wrap-up show. The highlights are generally shots of all the goals made and miss from a camera near the net.
Fox Sports VR: Boxing fans will rejoice at three full half hour bouts along with some highlights and there is even some fun monster truck footage. The only negative is that these definitely seem to be scaled too small. The production isn't up there with the WWE, with I'm thinking only two cameras, one on the ringpost and one on the floor. Still scaling aside it is a decent, if fairly static, VR experience. I just previewed the fights, but I suspect I'll nuke some popcorn and start watching them at some point. Boxing from the edge of the ring is pretty entertaining.
NextVR Boxing: Basically two 'fight experiences' of about 5 minutes each which are highlight packages. The scale is maybe a touch small, but better than the Fox fights. Ignore the rest of the stuff as it is just the usual boxing hype, but take 10 minutes and enjoy the well produced highlight reels of two good fights.
Wimbledon: This is one of the few areas where NextVR didn't impress me. There are two highlight clips totaling 9 minutes and the footage is shot from behind a distracting green barrier. The barrier is too close and the action is too far away.
Paranormal: I don't do horror. Just for this blog post I did watch a couple trailers and such for this. It is well filmed, though the scale to me looks about a third too small. If you like horror and spooky stuff you will like the two 30 minuteish shows here.
LiveNation: Sadly there are no concerts here, just backstage passes that are primarily promos for concerts held last year. If you happen to see an artist you like, check out that 4 minute or so clip. Otherwise not much here, except they show, without the concert sound, bits of the concert and the video looks amazing.
I've slammed MelodyVR repeatedly for terrible monoscopic graphics and to me this proves everything I've written. The limited concert footage is superb VR quality unlike the horrible quality I see on MelodyVR. Just watch a couple backstage passes and then a couple MelodyVR previews to see what I mean. NexrVR really is miles ahead. I hope they offer more concerts, though I see no evidence that they will.
There are the occasional scaling issues and some categories without a lot of real content, but there is lots of very good VR content in this free app. The NBA really stands out as the does the documentary. Hopefully they add lots more content and do live events. The NBA already seems to be doing live games with the soon to be played finals on Gear VR for TNT subscribers but not on Go. I suspect that will change next year. Sports might be the huge breakout for VR, at least the one you can show your Mama, and I suspect NextVR will be in the vanguard. 'Stay tuned' I say in my best announcer voice, the best is yet to come.
Tribes of Papua New Guinea: This is a 12 minute documentary on a marriage and festival in New Guinea. It is nicely shot and narrated and the additional 8 minutes or so of behind the scenes type footage is a nice addition. This is an excellent free 20 minute educational travelogue package. These types of experiences really add to my enjoyment of VR and I congratulate NextVR on making this film. Note there is national geographic style toplessness so it is likely PG-13.
The technical work is excellent. I've seen so many travelogue type 'VR' videos that were poorly shot 2D that I was wondering if even NextVR could carry off a good VR experience. They did. In one of the little commentaries the director mentions that they had to stop the wedding many times to get the right shot and it took 3 hours to film that part of the video.
As with many NextVR films the scale seems a bit small. I actually thought it was much too small at first until realizing that the folks in New Guinea where a bit smaller than the football and basketball players I usually see in NextVR.
Overall this is one of the best non-sports films available on the Go right now. You really get a feel for the area and its people in a very short period of time. The immersion factor of VR really shows what can be done with an educational video. This and Space Explorers have really wet my appetite for more of these videos. The fact that it free makes this even more amazing. The streaming works well and unless you are deeply offended by topless women, you should definitely watch this.
NFL: If you enjoy the football as I do, you will like love this collection of game highlights from five NFL games. They tend to run about ten minutes each with two hosts who guide you through the highlights and chat about the games and such. There are a few best of films.
The inherent problem of the Go is that you have a range of about 1 to 10 yards where things look sharp. After about 10 yards things just start getting fuzzy. A football field is what 53 by 120 yards when you include the endzone. So much of the action is in the fuzzy zone. The good news is that plays close to the endzone and by the sideline look really good. It can be odd to see a receiver running into focus. Also to me the players are a bit smaller than reallife. Even with these limitations, this is just fun to watch.
Preview Show will get you hyped for five highlight reels from the games.They actually show some highlights from the previous season and the odd thing is that the plays look about 2 feet tall. In the current season they might look about 5 feet tall, so they have really improved in scale.
Sideline to Sideline is a nice 3 minute highlight reel with music of the games NextVR covered.
Best of the NFL is a 7 minute hosted clip show with mascots, players dancing and having fun, fans and even some plays. Nicely done, it might be the best of the lot.
There is a 3 minute clip about the Atlanta Falcons new digs.
The heart of the NFL experience is 5 games with hosted highlight / recap shows that are 8 to 10 minutes. In addition to a little intro and the highlights there is a player interview. This wouldn't be particularly notable on TV, but in VR it is amazing to see the plays as if you were standing on the sidelines. The players can look a bit small and once the action gets say 15 yards or more from the camera it gets very blurry. Still along the sidelines or in the endzone the picture quality is very good and it does feel like you are watching in person. Again if you like Football this will be high on your list of VR tings to do.
NBA: Amazingly enough there are full game replays. Camera are above and below the backboards and on the sidelines. At first it was a bit jarring to look at a play from up high, but you quickly adjust. NextVR is treating this in the same way that TV broadcasters do with their own trucks, crew, producer and announce team and it really shows. I've tried other sports app and they all feel like afterthoughts and generally have terrible video. These NBA productions look like broadcast TV productions in VR.
There are lots of action packed 3 minuteish highlight reels, dozens of them is feel like. They do a good job dazzling you with players from your favorite team and showing off the technology. But it is the full game productions that are really impressive. I don't know if most of use are quite ready to sit through a 2+ hour game in the Go goggles, but the games are there if you want to try it.
As mentioned here and there, the Go camera doesn't do very well at less than a yard or more than maybe 10 yards out if that. Fortunately the NBA is played in a much smaller field that football and soccer so with half a dozen good VR cameras it is possible to have most of the plays and players in reasonable focus. Along with the WWE (more next), the NBA seems ideally suited to the demands and limitations of VR. With a younger audience than either the NFL or MLB and flush with cash, the NBA seems to the the sport embracing VR. Even if you aren't a big basketball fan, and I'm not, you owe it to yourself to checkout some of this content as it might be the best VR sports content in the world today. Actually it might be some of the best VR film content anywhere and there's roughly 50 hours of it free.
WWE: Well produced segments that feel like TV broadcasts come to life. I watched all three 10 minute or so segments after typing that first sentence (I'd watched about 5 minutes before) and yes they are well done. WWE knows how to put on a show and the highlights from Fastlane and Wrestlemania are among the best I've seen up there with the NBA VR.
There seemed to be cameras on two ring posts and a couple outside the ring to bring all the action to you. It did feel like being inside a telecast as you felt closer than being in the arena crowd. The only odd thing was they didn't show any actual finishes. I don't know if that was contractual or if the finishes might have looked fake in VR. Anyway odd. That aside this was a lot of fun and that from someone who hasn't watched wrestling in decades.
With all the scripting and planning that goes into wrestling and with the performers in a tight area, Wrestling would seem perfect for VR to broadcast live. giving the new huge contract with FOX, WWE can certainly afford it. It would be ironic if Wrestling helped drive live VR as it once drove live (and taped) TV back when TVs had 10 inch black and white screens. Technology has come quite a ways.
Soccer: Like American football there tends to be too much ground for the camera to focus on. As a result everything not right in front of the goal tends to be fuzzy. Also the size of the players seems to be an issue. In the Manchester highlights at least everyone seemed about half size in some shots. Watching some more highlights the players generally seem a bit small but not half sized.
I'm not a soccer guy so forgive my ignorance of the sport. There was a big pre-season tournament with many of the best teams in the world playing in America. There are lots of highlight shows here, maybe 20, that range from 3 to 5 minutes usually and a longer tournament wrap-up show. The highlights are generally shots of all the goals made and miss from a camera near the net.
Fox Sports VR: Boxing fans will rejoice at three full half hour bouts along with some highlights and there is even some fun monster truck footage. The only negative is that these definitely seem to be scaled too small. The production isn't up there with the WWE, with I'm thinking only two cameras, one on the ringpost and one on the floor. Still scaling aside it is a decent, if fairly static, VR experience. I just previewed the fights, but I suspect I'll nuke some popcorn and start watching them at some point. Boxing from the edge of the ring is pretty entertaining.
NextVR Boxing: Basically two 'fight experiences' of about 5 minutes each which are highlight packages. The scale is maybe a touch small, but better than the Fox fights. Ignore the rest of the stuff as it is just the usual boxing hype, but take 10 minutes and enjoy the well produced highlight reels of two good fights.
Wimbledon: This is one of the few areas where NextVR didn't impress me. There are two highlight clips totaling 9 minutes and the footage is shot from behind a distracting green barrier. The barrier is too close and the action is too far away.
Paranormal: I don't do horror. Just for this blog post I did watch a couple trailers and such for this. It is well filmed, though the scale to me looks about a third too small. If you like horror and spooky stuff you will like the two 30 minuteish shows here.
LiveNation: Sadly there are no concerts here, just backstage passes that are primarily promos for concerts held last year. If you happen to see an artist you like, check out that 4 minute or so clip. Otherwise not much here, except they show, without the concert sound, bits of the concert and the video looks amazing.
I've slammed MelodyVR repeatedly for terrible monoscopic graphics and to me this proves everything I've written. The limited concert footage is superb VR quality unlike the horrible quality I see on MelodyVR. Just watch a couple backstage passes and then a couple MelodyVR previews to see what I mean. NexrVR really is miles ahead. I hope they offer more concerts, though I see no evidence that they will.
There are the occasional scaling issues and some categories without a lot of real content, but there is lots of very good VR content in this free app. The NBA really stands out as the does the documentary. Hopefully they add lots more content and do live events. The NBA already seems to be doing live games with the soon to be played finals on Gear VR for TNT subscribers but not on Go. I suspect that will change next year. Sports might be the huge breakout for VR, at least the one you can show your Mama, and I suspect NextVR will be in the vanguard. 'Stay tuned' I say in my best announcer voice, the best is yet to come.
Secret Fire on the Titanic
Secret Fire on the Titanic
Type: Exploration
Image Quality: Pretty Good
Scale: Good
Length: Medium
If you have ever wanted to walk some of the decks of the Titanic or go down into the bowels of the ship and explore the steel passageways, engine room and furnace rooms, you have found the app for you. Oddly you can't get onto some decks even though they are modeled and you can't see cabins or anything like that. However if you get Unimersive, you can see cabins and dining rooms, so between the two you get a pretty fair Titanic experience.
The graphics are fairly good 'gamey' 3D graphics. Some folks wander around and you can empathize with the poor saps loading the coal into the furnaces. It sort of feels like there should be a gmae, but someone forgot to put it in. Still a cool way to pass sometime.
Type: Exploration
Image Quality: Pretty Good
Scale: Good
Length: Medium
If you have ever wanted to walk some of the decks of the Titanic or go down into the bowels of the ship and explore the steel passageways, engine room and furnace rooms, you have found the app for you. Oddly you can't get onto some decks even though they are modeled and you can't see cabins or anything like that. However if you get Unimersive, you can see cabins and dining rooms, so between the two you get a pretty fair Titanic experience.
The graphics are fairly good 'gamey' 3D graphics. Some folks wander around and you can empathize with the poor saps loading the coal into the furnaces. It sort of feels like there should be a gmae, but someone forgot to put it in. Still a cool way to pass sometime.
Medieval Hidden Object
Medieval Hidden Object
Type: Game
Image Quality: Playstation 1
Scale:Good
Length: Too Long
This felt like wandering around the house of a PS1 RPG looking for stuff before you start your quest, only once you find all the stuff you have to find your stuff again and you never go on a quest. I actually like the occasional hidden object games on the PC to relax. Somehow it felt even more pointless than usual in VR. To be fair it did feel like I was a 3D sprite wandering around my two room house.
Type: Game
Image Quality: Playstation 1
Scale:Good
Length: Too Long
This felt like wandering around the house of a PS1 RPG looking for stuff before you start your quest, only once you find all the stuff you have to find your stuff again and you never go on a quest. I actually like the occasional hidden object games on the PC to relax. Somehow it felt even more pointless than usual in VR. To be fair it did feel like I was a 3D sprite wandering around my two room house.
Monday, May 28, 2018
Pet Lab
Pet Lab
Type: Game
Image Quality:Very Good
Scale:Good
Length: Long
This is a fun make pets and sell them or train them and enter in tournaments, which I haven't done yet. The content unlocks nicely taking you through hatching, adjusting physical attributes, adding things like horns, training and such as you level up. The pets are very nice looking and fun. They do have a nice sense of reality to them.
I think I've now entered a tournament, so I'll have to see how that goes. They showed a preview tournament and it seems fun, it is a bit like sumo wrestling for pets. You can unlock everything for 8 bucks, I'll try it on the free mode for now and see what you can unlock without paying.
This is a fun game that makes good use of the Go. The graphics are quite impressive and there is a good sense of immersion.
Type: Game
Image Quality:Very Good
Scale:Good
Length: Long
This is a fun make pets and sell them or train them and enter in tournaments, which I haven't done yet. The content unlocks nicely taking you through hatching, adjusting physical attributes, adding things like horns, training and such as you level up. The pets are very nice looking and fun. They do have a nice sense of reality to them.
I think I've now entered a tournament, so I'll have to see how that goes. They showed a preview tournament and it seems fun, it is a bit like sumo wrestling for pets. You can unlock everything for 8 bucks, I'll try it on the free mode for now and see what you can unlock without paying.
This is a fun game that makes good use of the Go. The graphics are quite impressive and there is a good sense of immersion.
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